We tend to be blind to change. We often don’t recognize how much we have grown or how much we have progressed towards our goals, which can be demotivating. It’s easy to devalue our own achievements when we can’t see them clearly.
On the other hand, it’s also easy to stay put when we want to move on. We might not recognize that we said we would do something a year ago and have barely moved from the starting point. To ensure we don’t get too caught up in our routine, we need to be regularly reviewing our progress and make a habit out of this. Why is this so important?
It helps us stay on track
We all live busy lives. There is work, family, hobbies, and a lot of series to watch. It’s easy to lose track of what we are doing or what we intended to do.
If we regularly review our progress on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, we can keep our goals fresh in our memory and make sure we don’t get too distracted by everything else that’s going on.
Appreciate your achievements
Reviewing your progress can help you recognize what you’ve accomplished. It’s easy enough for us to dismiss something once we have it, and that can be deeply discouraging.
By reviewing our progress, our achievements feel more salient, and it’s easier for us to recognize how much we have grown and moved forward.
Adjust course
In some cases, we might not be using the best strategy or plan. We should not expect to stick with, for instance, a diet for a year and then find that it didn’t help at all. It’s a waste of our time and resources. Tracking our progress provides a way to see what’s working and what’s not working and adjust course as needed.
For example, let’s imagine that we are studying towards a very important test. We need to check our knowledge and skills regularly and test ourselves to make sure that we are understanding everything correctly and using the best study strategies.
The sooner we identify mistakes or problems, the sooner we fix them and the faster we can reach our ultimate goal.
When you track your progress, it becomes easier to identify the obstacles in your path. It’s easy enough to let a couple of days go by without working out, but if you track your progress weekly, you will notice this pattern. It empowers you to analyze what’s going on with you and what is especially hard or is always in your way.
Get motivated by achieving smaller goals
Many goals are huge. It takes years to get an education or complete a novel. It might take months to lose weight.
Tracking our progress helps us naturally split these large goals into smaller ones, so we can get motivated by achieving new things every day or every week and feeling closer to the end.
For example, if you are trying to lose 10 kg, separate it into smaller goals, for example, losing 2 kg. Once you do, you can celebrate that achievement and feel motivated to keep going.
Get feedback
Reviewing our progress provides feedback and forces us to measure our plans against reality. Are our goals realistic? Is this task harder or easier than it seemed? Maybe you need more time to get to the goal.
Progress offers constant feedback about what we are doing and where we are in the process, so that we always have current information.
Share with others
When you review your progress, you can share it with others more easily, whether it is to teach or support them or to get their support for your goals. It provides a record of everything you’ve done without relying on our notoriously unreliable memories.
It’s not just useful for others, but can also be a way for yourself to review what you did years after the situation.
More efficient growth
Tracking your progress gives you a better idea of how much effort and time you have invested and the results you have achieved. This is valuable information because it will help you redirect your efforts towards the things that are most effective.
You can grow more by tracking what you’ve done and using that information to improve and optimize the process.
